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Submission + - SETI reasearch with Very Large Baseline Interferometry (bbc.co.uk)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Radio astronomers in Australia have tried a to detect a transmission from Gliese 581 using Very Large Baseline Interferometry with the Australian Large Baseline Array http://arxiv.org/abs/1205.6466. The star Gliese 581 (Gl581) is 20 light years away and is orbited by at least two planets in habitable zone. While the astronomers haven't detected any signal from Gl581, they have derived a limit on the strength of the signal that could be detected from Earth. In simple terms, if a transmitter like Arecibo would have been in operation in the Gl581 system and beaming in our direction, the signal would have been picked.
This is a breakthrough method to examine extraterrestrial transmissions and will be implemented with the Square Kilometre Array, the gigantic radio interferometer that will be built in South Africa and Australia. With this technique, the SKA will lift the SETI exploration to an amazing new regime.
Idle

Submission + - Toddler's iPad Tantrum Gets Him Kicked Off Plane 3

Submitted by theodp
theodp writes: A three-year-old boy on an Alaska Airlines flight to St. Martin Island from Seattle threw such severe conniptions after his iPad was taken away before takeoff that he and his family were removed from the plane. Alaska Airlines said this was a judgment call on the captain's part — the boy reportedly wouldn't sit upright and wouldn't keep his seatbelt on. No word if the little tyke tweeted his disgust with how the airline deprived him of his iPad rights, a la Alec Baldwin.
Politics

Submission + - 'Legitimized' cyberwar will make culture wars much dirtier (itworld.com)

Submitted by DillyTonto
DillyTonto writes: US officials have acknowledged playing a role in the development and deployment of Stuxnet, Duqu and other cyberweapons against Iran.
The acknowledgement makes cyberattacks more legitimate as a tool of not-quite-lethal international diplomacy.
It also legitimizes them as more-combative tools for political conflict over social issues, in the same way Tasers gave police less-than-lethal alternatives to shooting suspects and gave those who abuse their power something other than a club to hit a suspect with. Political parties and single-issue political organizations already use "opposition research" to name-and-shame their opponents with real or exaggerated revelations from a checkered past, jerrymander districts to ensure their candidates a victory and vote-suppression or get-out-the-vote efforts to skew vote tallies. Imagine what they'll do with custom malware, the ability to DDOS an opponent's web site or redirect donations from an opponent's site to their own.
Cyberweapons may give nations a way to attack enemies without killing anyone. They'll definitely give domestic political groups a whole new world of dirty tricks to play.
Canada

Submission + - CIPS chimes in on Internet Preditors Act (www.cips.ca)

Submitted by alphabet26
alphabet26 writes: The Canadian Information Processing Society has formally responded to the Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act introduced in February of this year. Bill C-30 would grant authorities extended powers to monitor and track Canadians online. In the statement CIPS recommends that the Government of Canada "prohibit access to personal information, related records/data, content, communications or records of internet use without the safeguard of a warrant". CIPS is a non-profit organization that represents Canadian IT professionals and is a member of the International Federation for Information Processing (IFIP).
AT&T

Submission + - AT&T Expects Data-Only Phone Plans Within 2 Years (google.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson said today that he expects wireless carriers to start offering data-only cellphone plans within the next 24 months. "Analysts see such plans as a logical extension of trends in wireless technology. Smartphones with data service can already use it for Internet phone calls and texting through services such as Skype.
Phone calls are also taking a back seat to other things people do with their smartphones. AT&T has been recording a decline in the average number of minutes used per month.' He says there isn't a specific plan in the works; he just think it's inevitable.
Google

Submission + - Apple, Google: Battle of the Cloud Maps (slashdot.org)

Submitted by
Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: "Google has sent invitations for a June 6 event in which it will apparently unveil "The Next Dimension of Google Maps." Meanwhile, rumor suggests Apple is preparing its own mapping service for iOS devices. The escalating battle over maps demonstrates the importance of cloud apps to tech companies' larger strategies."
Ubuntu

Submission + - Making ZFS and DTrace work on Ubuntu Linux (liberumvir.com)

Submitted by Liberum Vir
Liberum Vir writes: Many of the people that I talk with, that use solaris-like systems, mention ZFS and DTrace as the reasons they simply cannot move to Linux. So, I set out to discover how to make these two technologies work on the latest LTS release of Ubuntu. It turned out to be much easier than I expected. The ports of these technologies have come a long way. If you or someone you know is addicted to a solaris-like system because of ZFS and DTrace, please, inquire within.
The Internet

Submission + - Hollywood Agent Ari Emanuel wants Google to Invent A Magic Stop Piracy Button (techdirt.com)

Submitted by closer2it
closer2it writes: At this week's All Things D conference, Walt Mossberg and Kara Swisher invited Hollywood agent Ari Emanuel. Things like TV not dying, cord-cutting being some kind of myth, and that googlers are smart guys and they should do something about the stealing of content. Josh Topolsky, from The Verge, apparently challenged him on this point, asking: "Aren’t you saying that the road is responsible for the fact that someone drove on it before they robbed my house?" Emanuel didn't like this analogy, and even ended the reply asking Topolsky where he works. Mike Masnick also wrote a piece about the interview. I guess that if the Internet has enemies, I'd say Emanuel gives them a face.
Medicine

Submission + - Redesigned cooler reinvents tuberculosis treatment (patexia.com)

Submitted by
sarfralogy
sarfralogy writes: "It started with a basic soft drink cooler, a need for easier management of tuberculosis and $150,000 in innovation support.
A big challenge in managing tuberculosis is keeping the medicine cool, in addition to tracking and monitoring dose administration. These challenges can be life-threatening, especially in less-developed countries, where refrigerators and fancy cooling devices are rare; ice must be trucked in on a daily basis to keep medicines at controlled temperatures. A redesigned cooler with the ability to keep the medicine cool and record when medicine is dispensed is aiming to solve both these problems.
The design of the cooler is simple and practical — common characteristics of a scientifically sound experiment or innovation. It’s nothing more than a standard soft drink cooler but the team from MIT's Little Devices Lab equipped the cooler with the ability to sound an alert when the temperature inside the cooler becomes too high and transmit data wirelessly using a cellphone transmitter whenever the cooler is opened."

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: Where's the Slashdot markup manual? 1

Submitted by LeadSongDog
LeadSongDog writes: After all these years, the FAQ on /. still doesn't tell a submitter how to encode a link so that it appears the way one expects, as underlined or coloured text rather than as a naked URL. So where's the markup manual? Sooner or later, somenerd is going to want to read it...
Math

Submission + - Ask Slashdot: What to do with a Math Degree? 6

Submitted by badmojo17
badmojo17 writes: After achieving her lifelong dream of becoming a public school math teacher, my wife has found the profession to be much more frustrating than she ever expected. She could deal with having a group of disrespectful criminals as students if she had competent administrators supporting her, but the sad truth is that her administration causes more problems on a daily basis than her students do. Our question is this: what other professions are open to a bright young woman with a bachelor's degree in math and a master's degree in education? Without further education, what types of positions or companies might be interested in her as an employee?
Mars

Submission + - Dutch firm plans Mars Colony by 2023 (mars-one.com) 2

Submitted by
argStyopa
argStyopa writes: "Dutch firm Mars One plans for ongoing habitation on the Martian Surface by 2023, including additional crews arriving every 2 years thereafter. Intro video at http://www.youtube.com/embed/6QoEEGySGm4 is flashy, almost suggesting a pending TV show. The fact that one of their stated suppliers is SpaceX — who recently announced their Red Dragon module as a Mars-destined vehicle — might suggest that they're totally serious."

Submission + - Smaller SIM Format Standardized (engadget.com)

Submitted by mk1004
mk1004 writes: ETSI members have approved a new smaller SIM format. But not without some crying and whining from Nokia, at least according to the article.
Businesses

Submission + - Google to Require Retailers to Pay to be in Google Shopping Results (wsj.com)

Submitted by
gambit3
gambit3 writes: "In a move to squeeze more cash out of its lucrative Web-search engine, Google is converting its free product-search service into a paid one.
Online retailers will now have to bid to display their products on Google's Shopping site. Currently, retailers include their products for free by providing Google with certain data about the products. Google then ranks those products, such as cameras, by popularity and price.
"Google Shopping will empower businesses of all sizes to compete effectively—and it will help shoppers turn their intentions into actions lightning fast," wrote Sameer Samat, a Google vice president, in a statement."
Games

Submission + - Electronic Arts Readies "Massive" Patch for Battlefield 3 (hothardware.com)

Submitted by
MojoKid
MojoKid writes: "EA noted they have an update coming for BF3 players, rolling out on June 4-5, and it's "a big one," which an understatement of epic proportion, considering the
multitude of tweaks, changes, enhancements, and fixes included within. One of the ways EA hopes to make BF3 game play better is by reducing the suppression effect, a hot topic since the last big update, in which EA cranked up the effect to the point where some players complained it was too much. There will be changes to how servers are identified, vehicle related updates, soldier and gadget updates, weapons related changes, and over a dozen added and fixed features that fall under the "miscellaneous" umbrella. All told, there are around 70 changes included in the patch."
Your Rights Online

Submission + - War and Nookd - Ebook regex gone haywire (futureoftheinternet.org)

Submitted by
PerlJedi
PerlJedi writes: "

The Superior Formatting Publishing version isn’t a Barnes and Noble book, so this isn’t the work of a rogue Nook marketer from B&N. Rather, it’s likely that Superior Formatting Publishing ported its Kindle version of War and Peace over to the Nook — doing a search and replace to make sure that any Kindle references they’d inserted, such as in the advertising at the end of the book about their fine Kindle products, were simply changed to Nook.

"

Submission + - (SF tech) Female devs sought for Hackathon 6/8-10 (Women 2.0 & Via.Me) (xhack2012.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Hello Slashdot,
We've teamed with Women 2.0 to encourage more Bay Area females to show their programming skills at the Hack to the Future event next week in San Francisco.

San Francisco startups Via.Me and RadiumOne are awarding $5,000 to the best new app created at the hackathon June 8-10 in San Francisco.

Here's the press release.
http://www.marketwire.com/press-release/RadiumOnes-ViaMe-Hack-Future-June-8-10-San-Francisco-Challenges-App-Developers-5000-1664226.htm

Hack to the Future
Who Should Come?
Developers in the photo, video, audio, mobile and social space that want to build a cool hack.

What Should You Expect?
An awesome time. Eat, drink, hang out and HACK with the most amazing mobile and web developers and designers in the Bay Area and beyond. Compete for over $8,000 in prizes.

When & Where
June 8-10, 2012 at RadiumOne Labs
55 Second St. (between Market and Mission)
Solarium on 1st floor
San Francisco, CA 94105

Thanks Slashdot for taking a look!
Peter Brooks
http://xhack2012.com/

Submission + - In America, 46% of people hold a creationist view of human origins (gallup.com) 1

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: The latest Gallup poll is out and it finds that 46% of Americans hold the view that God created humans in their present form within the last 10 000 years. According to Gallup the percentage who hold this view has remained unchanged since 1982, when they first started asking the question.

Roughly 33% of Americans believe in divinely guided evolution, and 15% believe that humans evolved without any supernatural help.
Canada

Submission + - Canadian Copyright board to charge for music at weddings, parades (www.cbc.ca) 1

Submitted by silentbrad
silentbrad writes: The CBC reports that the Copyright Board of Canada will begin charging for music played at live venues: 'Money can't buy love — but if you want some great tunes playing at your wedding, it's going to cost you. The Copyright Board of Canada has certified new tariffs that apply to recorded music used at live events including conventions, karaoke bars, ice shows, fairs and, yes, weddings. The fees will be collected by a not-for-profit called Re:Sound. While the Society of Composers, Authors and Music Publishers of Canada (otherwise known as SOCAN) already collects money from many of these events for the songwriters, Re:Sound will represent the record labels and performers who contributed to the music. ... For weddings, receptions, conventions, assemblies and fashion shows, the fee is $9.25 per day if fewer than 100 people are present and goes up to $39.33 for crowds of more than 500 people. If there's dancing, the fees double. Karaoke bars will pay between $86.06 and $124 annually depending on how many days per week they permit the amateur crooning. And parades, meanwhile, will be charged $4.39 for each float with recorded music participating in the parade, subject to a minimum fee of $32.55 per day.'

Also reported by Sun News, Metro News, and others.

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